Paola Sanguinetti

Paola has two decades of teaching experience in the area of computational design. Her passion is mentoring students and supporting the participation of underrepresented groups in her area of expertise: design computation and building simulation. In addition, her courses promote student investigation of sustainable strategies in architecture. Paola was recognized for her excellence in teaching when she was named as one of DesignIntelligence's 30 most admired educators in 2014.

She received a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Kansas, a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, and a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology, specializing in High Performance Buildings and Design Computation.

Paola’s current research centers on Smart Cities and user-centered design solutions, concentrating in important aspects of design computation, including parametric modeling and building simulation, and Building Information Modeling and Integrated Project Delivery for façade systems. Her expertise includes performance-based design and risk-analysis for building-façade retrofitting.

While at Georgia Tech Paola worked in Dr. Chuck Eastman’s Digital Building Lab, where she helped develop a tool for the U.S. General Services Administration that automates design and analysis feedback. Her contribution concentrated on improving data exchanges between building-information models and simulation models for quantitative analysis at the early stages of design.

Paola has worked in New York and London, gaining professional experience with several internationally distinguished architectural practices, including those of Emilio Ambasz and Zaha Hadid.